


Be My Friend (Hold Me, Wrap Me Up)

by Abbie



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: 2x14, Episode Tag, F/M, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Team Arrow, Team as Family, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2018-01-14 05:52:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1255315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abbie/pseuds/Abbie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Diggle takes care of Felicity, after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be My Friend (Hold Me, Wrap Me Up)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt/First sentence provided by Anonymous.

After Oliver left for Queen Manor in a rush and Sara was busy having a heart to heart with her sisters, Diggle took it upon himself to take a loopy Felicity back to her apartment to insure she got there all in one piece.

She was quiet on the drive back to her apartment, still wearing Oliver’s blue dress shirt, buttoned loosely around her shoulders like a cape. Diggle had draped his coat around her as well to protect her modesty.

They rode the elevator to her floor, Felicity leaning slightly against his shoulder as the digital number above the doors slowly climbed, and Digg could tell by the sharpening of her gaze that the oxycodone was beginning to wear off.

He fingered the bottle of pills in his pocket, deciding he’d give her another with a glass of water once he got her settled, and send her to sleep it off. He had thoughts about spending the night on her couch, just in case she needed help with something or tore her stitches in the middle of the night; this was Felicity’s first gunshot wound, and it made him a little overprotective, he had to admit.

They made it into her apartment and Felicity wandered into her kitchen, flipping the light with her left hand and standing in front of the fridge, squinting at the closed door like she was trying to view its contents with x-ray vision.

Huffing a breathy chuckle through his nose, John scooted past her to her sink, pulling a glass from a cabinet and filling it with water. “Felicity, you hungry? Now might be a good time to get a little something on your stomach.”

She grumbled low in her throat, then sighed. “Don’t know what I want. All I have in there is leftover Chinese and week-old Italian takeout.”

Digg glanced around her counter and spotted a loaf of bread; checking the date, he asked, “How about some toast? While it’s in the toaster, I can clean those stitches one more time, see if you did any more bleeding.” She rolled an evil eye at him, and he tucked away a smile, sure now the drugs were wearing thin and the pain was making her grumpy, if clearer-headed. “And after your toast, you can have another ‘aspirin.’”

Felicity sighed long-sufferingly and nodded, awkwardly shrugging out of his coat. He hurriedly took it from her, then gestured her to one of the bar stools grouped around her center island. She hopped up and he made quick, utilitarian work of the few closed buttons of the blue shirt, backing off as she gripped its front with her left hand and pulled it down just enough to reveal her right shoulder.

Diggle turned away, swiftly got two slices of whole wheat bread into the toaster, and retrieved the first-aid kit he knew lived under Felicity’s kitchen sink.

Plunking the plastic box—significantly larger than the one she’d owned at the beginning of last summer—onto the island counter, he dug inside for a handful of gauze swabs, some clean bandaging and tape, and a packet of alcohol disinfectant wipes.

Carefully peeling away the gauze pad covering her wound, Diggle glanced up to see Felicity watching his fingers work. She caught him looking and blinked at him. Smiling reassuringly, he glanced to see the old gauze spotted with blood and pulled it free, setting it aside to trash when he was finished. “You okay, Felicity?”

She watched him and nodded, then frowned a little droopily. “I was better before the drugs started to wear off.” His eyebrows went up, and she rolled her eyes. “I’m not stupid, Digg, I knew they weren’t aspirin.”

He chuckled, opening a wipe and gently dabbing her stitches with it, carefully cleaning the blood that had begun to crust and dry around them.

He glanced back at her, and the seriousness in her face made his hands momentarily pause as she said, “Just like I know you weren’t asking if I was okay because I got shot.”

John exhaled quietly from his nose but waited patiently for her to answer the question, now that she acknowledged it.

"I like Sara," she began. "She’s… nice." Her voice went small. "I like people who are nice to me." She blinked, coming back from whatever faraway place her mind had flitted to. "She’s just also really beautiful, and smart, and cool, and… like you guys. She’s strong. And all the rest, too. It just… felt like I was losing my spot, because someone better was around now."

Diggle shook his head, lips pursing. “Sara’s not _better_ than you, Felicity. Just different. Your spot’s not up for grabs, to anyone.”

Felicity groaned a little, head falling to one side. “I know. I _know_.” She sighed. “But it’s hard, to not feel like it anyways.” She went quiet for a moment, and Digg, sensing she wasn’t quite done, waited. “I told Oliver… about my dad.”

Diggle’s fingers stopped again, in the middle of replacing the gauze pad on the front of her shoulder. He turned his head to look at Felicity, taking in her profile, expression melancholy. “Because of the thing with Thea?”

She nodded. “I hesitated. Telling him. Because I was scared, Moira said he’d hate me for being the one to tell him, and I can’t… I can’t lose him.”

Digg nodded, encouraging her to keep going; telling her he understood. He knew, since she told him the rough sketch of her childhood drama this past summer, that she had issues with abandonment.

"And then Sara came, and… Digg, I didn’t tell you everything. About my dad."

Diggle pulled back a little in surprise; not that there was more to the story, but that she seemed to feel guilty and apprehensive, now, letting him in on it. “Felicity, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

She nodded, then shook her head. “No, I—I just… need somebody to understand. Because I know how I looked today. Like a stupid, insecure little jealous girl.” Digg opened his mouth to protest, but closed it again when she continued in a rush, “But that’s not it, that’s not—not why I felt… threatened, by Sara.”

"Hey." Digg reached out and put two fingers under Felicity’s chin, drawing her face up to look at him. "Just tell me, Felicity. You know I’m not going to think badly of you for it. I already don’t."

She just looked so sad, so lost. “I tracked my dad down, when I was 17.”

That had not been what John had been expecting to hear. He blinked, dropping his hand from her face. “I always kinda wondered if you might’ve. I figure, nobody could hide from you, not if you really wanted to find them.”

She swallowed hard and nodded. “I did. Want to find him. Things with Mom were… not good, then. And I thought, even if Dad left, maybe he just didn’t come back because of _Mom_ , maybe if I found him I could—could go live with him, or something, instead.” She dropped her gaze, staring at her fingers as they twisted a button on Oliver’s shirt round and round. “But he didn’t just leave Mom. He left me. He… didn’t want me.” She inhaled, shaky. “He told me, the night he left, that he’d come back for me. That I’d always be his little girl.”

She looked up at him, her face emptying, settling into tired, resigned lines of old acceptance. “He lied, Digg. He was never coming back for me, and I didn’t—I didn’t matter.

"He replaced us. My Mom and me. He has another wife, and three kids." Her eyes dropped, chin still up. "The oldest is a boy. A year younger than me. My half-brother. Their other two kids are adopted." Her lips twisted, a bitter curl that had no business calling itself a smile. "He discarded me so thoroughly from his life that he had no problem going through the lengthy and expensive adoption process, _twice_. Emma and Isolde. His little girls.”

John inhaled sharply; that, that cut. And it very much illuminated a lot of what Felicity had been feeling and the way she’d been reacting over the last couple of days. “Felicity, I’m sorry.”

She shrugged her left shoulder, chewing on the inside of her bottom lip. “I check on them, sometimes. They’re doing really well.” Her voice got thick, and she swallowed hard. “My dad’s doing… really, really well. Without me.”

Diggle didn’t stop to think, he just stepped forward and gently brought his arms around Felicity, carefully avoiding her right shoulder, his other hand coming behind her head to draw her face to rest against his chest.  She let him, and for a moment he just held her and laid his cheek atop her head, fingers stroking down her mess of a ponytail. He made a mental note to offer to brush it out for her before she went to bed; she’d probably need the help.

Sniffling, she drew back some moments later, and he let her, stepping backward and giving her space. Behind him, the bread popped free of the toaster, a perfect golden-brown.

"Don’t tell Oliver," Felicity asked, hushed. "I don’t want him to know. Not now."

Digg just looked at her, and nodded. “Anything you want, Felicity.”

She met his eyes, mouth pulling up on one side, soft and grateful. “Right now I think I want some toast, with peach preserves. And then another ‘aspirin’, or two.”

Diggle chuckled, turning towards the fridge. “Anything you want, Felicity.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Sia's Breathe Me, which just fit this fic and these two characters too beautifully for words.


End file.
